Snowy Egret with a Catfish

[Jay Bernstein]

Taken shortly after sunrise at Ft DeSoto Beach , FL
Canon 100-400mm F4.5/5.6L IS USM
310mm
IS0 100
F8
1/400

[Jay Bernstein]

oaky I think I have the attachment thing figured out! Here is my snowy egret.
Jay

[Geoff Warnock]

Nice moment captured Jay. To me the egret looks rather yellow. Maybe you can tweak the white balance to fix that. In my case, I would also try to either clone out or paint over the brown branches in the background. My guess is that selecting the colour from the top left and painting over in stages at low opacity on the branches would be effective. Unlucky fish!

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

Nice moment captured, like how you manage to keep the details in the white and the struggle pose of the fish. The droplet at the tip of the beak is a nice also. I also see some yellow cast and the black branches in the background do distract a bit.

[Jay Bernstein]

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. I did what you suggested, what do you think now?
Where do we draw the line? how much do you photoshop a pictyure that it takes from the reality of nature?
Jay

[Geoff Warnock]

Hi Jay, I find the colour much better. For the cloning, I think your image looks much stronger now. For me the bird (or subject in general) is the nature and the important bit. I find that if a background can be cleaned up to emphasise the beauty of the subject I'll do it.

[Rachel Hollander]

Jay - the repost is a big improvement.

TFS,
Rachel

[Johan Kruger]

I like this very much, especially the repost.
At the end of the day its a moment in time that YOU froze, so i recon you can do as much (or as little) PS as what suits you :cool:

[Jay Bernstein]

I like that response,. its about the image and its about the bird and its plavcce in that particular moment.
Thanks!

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

Nice repost Jay, did a good job cleaning the background. I don't mind about Photoshop as long as it goes along with the rules (like for natural competition where some are against removing stuff off the image). I also recommend disclosing when ask too.

[Julie Kenward]

Yes, here at BPN we allow cloning and patching and anything else you need to do in order to get to the very strongest image possible. That said, it's always your call - you do what you feel comfortable with. If you don't like to clone then you better get very picky about your angles, locations, and apertures because birds don't really give a hoot what's in front of - or behind - them.

Outstanding change to the WB. Very nice clean up on the dark area. If you had chosen to leave that in I'd have told you do trash the image - it's too much distraction compared to the pristine condition of the egret. Now if the branch had had some detail to it and it was in a field with a turkey then by all means, leave it in!